1.7 billion afghanis saved in MRRD contracts

KABUL (Pajhwok): Rural Rehabilitation and Development Minister Nasir Ahmad Durrani on Wednesday said his ministry had saved more than 1.7 billion afghanis in contracts in one year as a result of its anti-corruption effort.

Durrani told participants of a conference “Annual Anti-Corruption Program of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) in Kabul, that his ministry had taken serious steps towards improving its affairs.

The measures the MRRD had taken included building electronic systems, simplifying executive processes, creating a single center for customers, sharing corruption cases with judiciary organs, establishing information bank, increasing provincial trips of MRRD leadership’s board to assess problems, monitor projects and improve supervisory team as part of anti-corruption efforts over the past one year.

“Fortunately there a great change has been brought to the contract signing process, more than 1.7 billion afghanis were saved in 152 contracts for different projects last solar year,” he said.

He said the projects were estimated to cost more than 8.2 billion afghanis but the amount was reduced to 6.5 billion afghanis after an in-depth review.

Similalry, Durrani said a number of organizations working under the National Solidarity Program (NSP) of MRRD were fined 64 billion afghanis due to their poor performance.

The Transparency International in its latest report on corruption has said the anti-corruption campaign is intensified in Afghanistan, but called for more efforts at eradicating the menace.

Afghanistan was ranked 169th, just ahead of Libya, Sudan and Yemen and perceived the world’s seventh most corrupt nation in the IT report.